How to set up messages, reminders, text messages and push

Salon Booking OS by OsDot™ tells your clients about their appointments, their shop orders and their payments by e-mail, and reminds them of their visits by e-mail, text message or push. Nothing goes out until you set up the way it is sent. This chapter covers the set-up and what happens after it.

Video tutorial #

How to set up reminders, text messages and push in Salon Booking OS by OsDot™ 1.0.0

Watch on YouTube

Start with e-mail #

E-mail is the first thing to set up — before you invite your team or take bookings. Your setup links, password resets, sign-in codes, booking and order e-mails and receipts all need it.

You need an e-mail account that allows sending through SMTP: your web host’s mailbox, or a sending service. Its provider gives you the server name, the port and the sign-in details.

1. Open System → E-mail (SMTP). As the owner you confirm your password first.
2. Fill in SMTP host, SMTP port (usually 587), Encryption (usually STARTTLS), SMTP username and SMTP password.
3. Fill in From e-mail — the address your clients see the e-mails come from — and From name, usually your salon’s name. Reply-to e-mail is where your clients’ answers go.
4. Tick Enable E-mail (SMTP) and choose Save settings.
5. Choose Validate saved configuration. It checks that the server answers. It does not send an e-mail.

To see a real e-mail arrive, turn on your two-step sign-in and use Send a test code (see Your team’s sign-ins), or make a test booking with your own e-mail address.

Saved passwords stay hidden. Leave the password field empty to keep the one you saved.

Before e-mail is set up, nothing can be e-mailed. Messages planned in that time are marked Failed and are not sent later, when you set e-mail up. That is why e-mail comes first.

What your clients receive #

About appointments and payments:

About shop orders (see The shop):

The booking e-mails give the services, the date and time in your salon’s time zone, the booking reference, and a link to change or cancel the appointment. The confirmation, and the e-mail after a change, also give:

• the staff member;
• the total;
• when a deposit was paid, what was paid and what is left to pay at the visit;
• until when the client can change or cancel for free.

For example:

Staff member: Zara Okafor
Reference: VW0BA197
Total: $85.00
Deposit paid: $40.00. Left to pay at your visit: $45.00.
Free to change or cancel until 29 Oct 2026, 2:30 PM CDT.

The confirmation and the e-mail after a change also say “Add it to your calendar”. The link opens a page of your website that downloads the appointment as a calendar file (.ics), which every calendar app reads. In the e-mail’s branded version it is a link of its own words, and the plain-text version shows its address. After a move, the e-mail’s new link gives the new time. A site that does not connect the booking pages leaves the sentence out.

When a service has a “from” price, the total is an estimate (“Estimate: from $65.00”). Without a notice window the last line says “until the start”. A booking made after the free-change time says instead that it can no longer be changed online and to call the salon. The reminder says what was paid and what is left, as before.

A receipt or a refund says what the payment was for, for example “The deposit for your appointment: Women’s cut & finish, 12 Oct 2026, 11:00 AM CDT”, or for a shop order “For: Repair hair mask — 200 ml.”

The order confirmation lists the items, the total, how it is paid — for example “(to pay when you collect)” — and how the client gets it (“Collect at” and the salon’s name, or the delivery). Most shop e-mails link to the order’s own page, where the client follows the order and can ask to return something.

Most e-mails to a client end with your salon’s address and phone, as your website’s footer shows them (from Salon → Location). Amounts are written with their cents, for example “$45.00”, in your site’s currency. A line with nothing to say is left out: for example, there is no phone line while no phone is set.

A walk-in gets no confirmation (the client is already there). A cancellation has no change-or-cancel link.

Every e-mail also comes in your website’s look — your logo, your theme’s colour, and your salon’s name, address and phone at the bottom — with one button for its main link (Manage your appointment, See your order). It reads well in light and dark mail apps; a mail app that shows only plain text gets the same words.

E-mails for you and your team #

• Set up your … account — the setup link of a new team member (72 hours).
• Reset your … password and Confirm your new … e-mail address — links a person asks for (30 minutes).
• Your … code — the owner’s two-step sign-in code.
• Your daily summary — see The owner’s daily summary.

These go out at once, when they are asked for.

The shop’s e-mails for the salon go to the Public contact e-mail of Website → Business profile:

• New shop order … — a client placed an order, with its items, total and how it is paid and collected or delivered; the button opens the order.
• Return asked for: order … — a client asks to return items, with their reason.
• Low stock: … — a product’s units left fell to its low-stock level.

Without a public contact e-mail these are not sent.

How messages go out #

Booking and order e-mails, reminders and receipts are sent by a scheduled task that runs every minute (see Scheduled tasks). If your server’s scheduled tasks are not running, these messages wait.

If sending fails for a reason that may pass — the mail server did not answer, for example — the message is tried again after 1 minute and after 5 minutes: three attempts in all. A message’s details are put together when it is sent. A reminder for an appointment that was moved or cancelled since is therefore not sent, and no appointment e-mail goes out about a visit that has already ended.

Reminders #

Reminders are set under Front desk → Reminders. You can have up to two reminders before each appointment.

1. For Reminder 1 and Reminder 2, enter how many Hours before (and minutes) — from 1 hour to 72 hours before the start.
2. Tick the Channels: email, sms (a text message) or push. A reminder can go by several channels.
3. Tick On and choose Save reminders.

The page first shows two suggested reminders: 24 hours and 2 hours before, by e-mail. They are not active until you save them.

Quiet hours: no reminder is sent between 21:00 and 08:00 in your salon’s time zone. If Reminder 1 falls in that time, it goes out at 20:00 the evening before. If Reminder 2 falls in it, it is skipped.

Good to know:

• Reminders are planned when an appointment is booked or moved. When you change the reminders, the coming appointments’ reminders are planned again within a minute or so: a new reminder reaches appointments already booked too, and a removed one is not sent.
• An appointment booked later than a reminder’s time (a booking for this afternoon with a 24-hour reminder) skips that reminder.
• When an appointment moves, its reminders follow the new time. When it is cancelled, they are not sent.
• A text-message reminder needs SMS set up and the client’s mobile number. A push reminder needs the salon’s app (see Push notifications).

A client’s own choice of reminders #

A client with an account can stop Reminders before a visit themselves, for each of their e-mail addresses and mobile numbers, under Privacy and my data (see Clients and their data). Their reminders are then listed on Messages as Not sent, and their page under Clients shows the reminders they stopped.

Everything else — confirmations, changes, cancellations, receipts, order e-mails and sign-in codes — still goes to them: it is part of their booking or order.

The Messages page #

Messages lists every message sent to your clients, your salon and your team, and what happened to it. The owner and the manager / front desk see it; you can give it to other roles under People → Roles and permissions.

• Filter by Channel (E-mail, SMS, Push) and by Outcome.
• To shows the recipient partly hidden, for example c***@example.com or +1 ••• 0199.
• The page also shows this month’s text messages and what they cost.

What each outcome means:

Stopping messages to someone. When a client asks not to get any more messages, open one of their messages and choose Stop messages to this recipient. This stops every message from your salon by that channel (e-mail or SMS) to that address or number. Sign-in codes and links that a person asks for themselves still reach them.

To allow messages again, open the client under Clients and choose Allow messages beside the address (see Clients and their data). The address of a client whose deletion was completed stays stopped.

Text messages (SMS) #

Text messages are optional, and they cost money: your SMS provider charges you for each text. Salon Booking OS by OsDot™ sends reminders by text only when a reminder rule names sms. Booking e-mails, order e-mails and receipts are never sent as texts.

You need your own account with an SMS provider: Twilio, or a provider that offers an HTTPS gateway. Then open System → SMS (text messages) and follow the five steps:

1. Your SMS provider — Twilio or an HTTP gateway, with the account details your provider gives you.
2. The sender — your salon’s number in international form (+1…), or a name of 3 to 11 letters where your provider allows one.
3. The countries texts may go to, as two-letter codes (US, CA). Start with your salon’s own. A number in another country is not texted.
4. The price of one text at your provider (one segment: up to 160 plain characters), in your site’s currency.
5. The most you spend on texts in a month. Texts stop when this cap is reached and start again the next month.

Tick Enable SMS (text messages) and save. Validate saved configuration checks the settings; it does not send a text.

Limits that protect your clients and your bill:

• At most 1 text a minute, 5 an hour and 10 a day to one number.
• Texts go to mobile numbers only. A landline or a service number cannot receive them. The desk warns you when you enter one.
• A text longer than one segment counts as several.

How much you have spent this month is shown on Messages, and each month’s texts and their cost on Reports. When spending reaches 80 % and 100 % of the cap, your salon’s public contact e-mail address gets an e-mail, once each month, and an entry is written to System → Audit log.

Push notifications #

Push notices go to your clients through your salon’s app (see The customer app). Every push notice lands in the client’s inbox in the app, where the bell on Home shows how many are unread; a notice opens the visit or the order it is about. To show them on the phone’s own screen too, set up your own free Firebase project and put its key under System → Push notifications (the app) — step by step in Push notifications with Firebase. Until then, leave that section switched off: a push reminder still reaches the app’s inbox, and Messages lists it as Failed (push is not set up).